She was brought back to reality by Chris. “Hey Laura, are you still here?”
She smiled at him and hugged him closer to her. “Yes, I’m here my darling, I’m here.”
“Laura, what are you up to?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean just that. What are going to do today? And what comes next?”
Laura Atwood looked momentarily lost. “I don’t think we should discuss this matter further, my darling. Not right now.”
“Please level with me, Laura. I lost you once before and I don’t want to lose you again.”
Laura stared at the ground. “Just trust me, Chris, trust me.”
“I love you, damn it. That’s a lot more than simple trust. It’s you who’s not trusting me. What are you holding back?”
“Chris, I also love you. I have since Beirut, only I couldn’t let myself admit it. I had a job to do, a career to pursue. I was torn and couldn’t back out. A lot of people depend on me, Chris; it’s very complicated. But let today slide. There is just too much to do. We have to stop this madman. You are part of it now; you are on the team.”
“Just be careful out there,” said Clayborne as he got up and went to the kitchen to make coffee.
“Chris, my love,” said Laura, following Chris into the kitchen. She hugged him from the back, pressing her body against his. “When this is over, let’s get away. Let’s go to the islands, to the sunshine. Let’s go lie on a warm beach and bask in the sun. Let’s swim naked in the sea. Forget this madness, get away from all this hatred. A vacation, just you and me.”
“Sounds wonderful. Let’s.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, of course. I promise,” replied Chris.
“Can you get away?”
“I’ll resign if they don’t let me go. They owe me time anyway. It’s been a while since I took any time off.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” said Laura.
“Will you promise to spend the rest of your life with me?”
“Is this a proposal?”
“You could call it that,” said Chris, planting a kiss on her forehead. “You might live to regret this.”
At about the same time that Chris and Laura were savoring their first cup of coffee, Omar woke up and made himself a cup of tea. This would be his last day in the apartment. The day ahead would be a long and busy one. Today he would change the course of history. This would also be the last chance for a decent meal, at least for a while. He needed to be ready and rested, both mentally as well as physically. Tired men make mistakes. There would be no room for mistakes today.
He showered, shaved, and packed his one carry-on suitcase. Not that he cared much for the contents of the case, but a trans-Atlantic traveler without luggage would arouse suspicion. He placed the suitcase by the front door and checked the entire apartment for any telltale signs he might have inadvertently left behind. He made a quick telephone call to United Airlines to confirm his flight out of Baltimore Washington International. It would be silly to be caught simply because he forgot to reconfirm a seat. He confirmed another seat from National Airport to Boston, on an American Airlines flight. His backup plan was now in place.
Satisfied that all was in order, he unlocked the cupboard where he had placed the equipment brought to him by the man from New York. He opened the first case and took out a 60 mm mortar, complete with a specially designed folding baseplate, sight, and bipod. All together, the mortar weighed exactly 45.2 pounds. It took Omar three minutes to assemble the mortar, which he placed in the living room, not far from the sliding glass door leading out to the large veranda. The advantage of a mortar was that he could fire over the other buildings that stood between him and the Capitol steps, and in doing so, did not need to see his target. The enormous advantage was that if he could not see them, they of course could not see him either. He could easily calculate his distance from his target from the map he had purchased. He also had the best spotter in the world working for him, helping him correct his aim: live television. Thanks to the TV cameras, he would see exactly where his shells landed, and, should the need arise, correct his aim.
Next, he placed the ten rounds neatly on the ground next to the mortar tube. There were eight shells with yellow markings. Those were high-explosive shells that had a range of eighteen hundred meters. High explosive rounds break up into small fragments upon impact, sending lethal shards of burning hot metal flying in every direction. A single mortar round can neutralize an area twenty meters across by ten meters deep. Three rounds fired from the same mortar will neutralize an area about thirty-five meters wide by thirty-five meters deep.
Omar then removed the two rounds with the red labels. Those were white phosphorous: WP, or “Willie Peters.” White phosphorous rounds have a range of only fifteen hundred meters, but Omar was well within his killing range. What Omar did not know was that the two WP shells had been fitted with the anthrax VX toxins mixture. The rounds contained enough to kill everyone within a three-mile area. With the January winds blowing through the streets of Washington, thousands more would be killed within minutes. The deadly solutions had been placed in the mortar rounds by Sheik al-Haq’s people.
Omar turned the television set to CNN and waited. Soon the president of the United States, the vice president, the president-elect and the vice president-elect would be standing on that now empty podium. So would the secretaries of state, defense, treasury, justice, interior, and others. So would the president of the Senate, the speaker of the House and other members of the American government. And Omar planned to kill them all. It would take him less than thirty seconds to wipe out the entire cabinet. There would be such confusion in the American government that it would take them months, if not years, to sort it out.
Omar would launch the two white phosphorous rounds first. Those would have the effect of setting fire to everything in the area and would badly burn everyone standing in the immediate blast area. It would also cover the podium in a cloud of thick white smoke, rendering it impossible for Secret Service agents to react and save the president. It would also allow him time to rectify his aim, should he need to. Omar felt sure he would hit his target with his first shot. Then hundreds of others would be killed within minutes by the deadly chemical mixture.
He would immediately follow those with the eight HE (high explosive) shells. In all, ten rounds of deadly hot, burning metal would rain down within milliseconds of each other on the entire American government before anyone even realized what had hit them. A good mortar man could fire off twenty to twenty-five rounds before the first shell even hit the ground. The maximum rate of fire for a 60 mm mortar is thirty rounds per minute. In other words, Omar would have finished firing his ten rounds and be well on his way out of the apartment before the last shell landed. And there was nothing the American Secret Service or the FBI or the CIA or the police or the army could do about it.
The seats around the podium were gradually beginning to fill up. Omar looked at his watch. It was a little past ten in the morning.
Chester Higgins collected Laura outside Chris’s apartment near Dupont Circle. The streets were practically deserted as they drove to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, where Special Agent in Charge Tony Billings was waiting outside the Tenth Street entrance, stomping his feet to keep warm.
“Brought you guys some doughnuts,” he said with a smile as he entered the car.
“Thanks,” said Higgins, “but we’re spies, not cops.”
“So, where do you guys want to start?”
“Let’s go to church,” said Laura.
“Think we’ll get lucky today?” asked Billings.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” replied Laura.
Delphine Muller-Hoeft kick-started the Yamaha 750cc motorcycle that IPS had rented for her a couple of days earlier. A motorbike would be easier to maneuver and get around on. The cold did not bother her. She clipped a police scanner onto her belt and inserted its earphone in her right ear. The two-way radio
that would keep her in contact with IPS and Chris Clayborne went into her left jacket pocket. She donned her crash helmet, lowered the plastic visor, and headed for the Washington Cathedral. She checked the radio to make sure it worked properly and called in to Clayborne. “Just leaving now, Chief.”
“Read you clear,” replied Clayborne. “And don’t call me Chief. It makes me feel like Perry White.”
“Who?”
“Didn’t you ever read Superman comics when you were a kid?”
“I was never a kid,” said Delphine.
Security around the cathedral was extremely tight. The cathedral had been checked and rechecked and triple-checked, as were the grounds surrounding it and its roof. The Secret Service and the District police had combed through it with trained sniffer dogs and electronic devices. Extra security had been assigned to secure the perimeter all night long. Every manhole along the possible routes the president-elect would take had been checked and then welded shut. All mailboxes along the route were removed. There were four possible routes in all. As an added precaution, several streets abutting the cathedral were closed to traffic. Everyone, including the minister performing the morning service, was searched and checked and had to pass through metal, explosives, and chemical detectors set up by the Secret Service. All guests were asked to show their invitations and some form of identification. Secret Service marksmen were positioned on all rooftops overlooking the cathedral, as well as on top of several other buildings along the route.
Laura and Higgins entered the church while Billings remained in the car, concentrating on the traffic coming over his walkie-talkie. There was a lot of traffic over his radio set. None that really mattered much.
Quite a few people were already inside the cathedral. Laura scanned every face, studying every feature. No, it made little sense. Omar would not be stupid enough to show himself in person in such closed quarters. Still, she and the CIA man positioned themselves outside the front door, along with several Secret Service agents and members of the uniformed division of the Secret Service and the Washington Metropolitan Police force. They scanned every arrival as the guests were made to walk through multiple detectors. Secret Service agents held smaller copies of Omar’s photograph, which they looked at from time to time, comparing the pictures with guests that might fit the description. Some of the agents carried a gadget similar to an iPhone that could take a picture of the guests arriving at the church and then morph it to see if it could be someone wearing a disguise.
If only she could get inside Omar’s head. Where was the weak link? There had to be one. Somewhere in the president’s schedule, Omar must have found a gap, a small breach in their security. That’s where he would strike. That’s what she had to find. Laura pulled out a schedule of the day’s events given to her a day earlier by the Secret Service. The events that were public knowledge were printed in bold letters. It was here, she thought, somewhere in this list, somewhere in here was the weak link that the terrorist would strike. The question was where? How?
The presidential advance team was already positioned outside the church. One of the agents who had attended several of the joint task force meetings recognized Higgins and Laura. He nodded to them, and they nodded back.
“Seven minutes,” said the agent. “Thunder will be here in exactly seven minutes. No one else goes in between now and the end of the service.”
The sound of wailing sirens from the approaching motorcade could be heard nearing the cathedral as the first of the motorcycle police escort came into view. The Secret Service agent in charge of the security detail spoke into his small microphone.
“Thunder approaching. Rooftops, check in.”
“Roof one, north side clear,” replied the Secret Service marksman positioned atop the closest building to the church.
“Roof two, south side clear,” came another voice over the radio.
“Roof three, west clear.”
The Secret Service agent spoke again: “Street points, check in.”
“East side, clear.”
“West, clear.”
“Front clear.”
“Back. All clear.”
“Bring Thunder forward, all clear here,” said the agent into his concealed microphone.
Higgins motioned to Laura, who joined him at the bottom of the steps. “We’ve done all that we can here. It’s up to the Secret Service now.” Overhead, a Park Police helicopter flew by and disappeared over the church in a large circle, darting between the low clouds. Laura looked up at the sound above her. “Can you get us in that machine?” she asked, pointing to the chopper.
“Sure,” replied the CIA man. “Let’s get Billings to earn his money. Remember, you and I are just observers here.” It took Special Agent Billings about seven minutes to contact the appropriate authorities from his car phone.
“Let’s go,” shouted Billings to Laura, who was watching the president-elect walk briskly up the stairs into the sanctuary of the church, surrounded by a gaggle of press photographers and television cameras. “We’ve got a ride. They’ll pick us up at the Pentagon, just across the river.”
***
Omar pulled back the living room drapes and stepped out onto the large veranda. It was a glorious day. Cold, but glorious. Today would be a great day in history. It would mark the beginning of a new dawn for the Middle East. The world would no longer continue to ignore them. This was only the beginning. In time, the West would learn that unless the Palestinians were given back their land, there would be no safe haven, anywhere. Even this great America, the country that claimed to be the last bastion of democracy, until now far removed and unhindered by terrorism, would learn what it was like to live in perpetual fear. Just like he and his people did all those years.
***
The service ended and the president-elect and his wife returned to their residence in northwest Washington. Tonight, and for the next four years—maybe even the next eight, if they got the votes—they would sleep in the White House.
Laura, Chester Higgins, and Tony Billings flew ahead of the convoy, scanning rooftops and every person they could set their sights on. All looked normal as a white blanket of snow gently enveloped the nation’s capital. With the president-elect safely home, the helicopter pulled away to refuel. They had another thirty minutes before the president-elect left for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Thirty minutes of respite before taking back to the air. It was going to be a long day.
Delphine Muller-Hoeft rode her motorcycle back to the IPS bureau. She had another hour or so to kill.
Thousands of miles away, on the peaks of the Golan Heights, Syrian troops were preparing for a large-scale nighttime military exercise. The weather was even colder here than in Washington, and the soldiers were not particularly pleased at having to prepare for a make-believe assault, just to please their officers. The snow was almost a foot deep and the cold bit right through their winter gear.
A few hundred yards away, most Israeli soldiers felt exactly the same way. This was probably as close as the two sides would ever come to agreeing over anything. In response to the Syrians’ maneuvers, the Israeli Defense Force had stepped up its readiness on the Golan Plateau. This was normal procedure that happened at least twice a year. It was fine in summer, but these winter exercises were hard on the body. However, since the previous night there were more soldiers than usual. The newly arrived troops could not help but notice scores of tanks and armored vehicles inching their way up the slopes of the Golan.
Captain Yosi Castell brought his binoculars up to his eyes and took a look across the dividing line. He was only a few hundred yards from the front-line Syrian soldiers. He had never seen so much armament piled up on the other side before and it frightened him. Yosi Castell had never trusted the Syrians much. Having fought them as a young recruit during the Yom Kippur War, he knew they could be formidable foes. He remembered the harsh battle his elite unit fought to capture these heights. Castell shivered, but not from cold. He picked up his portable fiel
d telephone and reported the latest developments to brigade headquarters. This was unusual, he thought. He had seen maneuvers before, but this was not right. He could almost feel the tension. He took a last look across the dividing line. Anyway, these silly war games would be over in a day or so and then he could go back to his comfortable seaside apartment in Nahariya with his wife and two kids.
In six different small Mexican towns in close proximity to the US border, six groups of heavily armed men were guarding six trucks packed with their best grade of cocaine. Each of the six Latin American drug lords had chosen a town to use as a forward base for what would no doubt be the largest cross-border drug run ever undertaken. The street value of the cocaine inside each one of the six trucks was easily fifty million US dollars. That would quickly make up for the ten million they each had to pay to have the gringo president killed. There were additional expenses, such as purchasing the trucks, security for the convoys, and buying off local police. In the rare instances they would refuse, they had to be “taken care of.”
With that much investment, the drug lords had to make sure that no one would be tempted to double or triple his investment by double-crossing one of their fellow drug lords.
Paco, who had thought of the idea at the outset, was the most nervous of all. If the plan failed, his “friends” would be coming after him to reclaim their initial investment, and in addition they would demand to be reimbursed for whatever they would lose in this transaction. With a street value of fifty million, there was no way in hell Paco could ever repay any of it. As a backup, Paco had dispatched twelve of his men, six sniper teams, each comprised of two men, the shooter and the spotter, to each of the other six cities. Their orders were to kill the drug lords who were his partners if something went wrong. As an added precaution, Paco had his private Learjet fueled and waiting at a local airstrip with an air crew standing by to take off with less than five minutes’ notice. Just in case, thought Paco. Just in case. What the drug king of Mexico did not know was that the six other drug lords had anticipated a possible double-cross from Paco, and just in case something happened to their shipment and Paco conveniently tried to get away, a hefty bribe to the airport officials where the plane was being serviced allowed one of their men to sneak aboard for just thirty seconds and place a barometric bomb in the cargo compartment. It would be triggered by a cell phone call and would explode once the plane commenced its descent and passed three thousand feet. Just in case. Just in case.
Inauguration Day Page 19